#2

The project is now live. Thanks, folks.

1 Like
#3

Ok, this is not a usual junto submission for me as this is a personal track I’ve been working on for the past two weeks, and I was planning to properly release/distribute this one as soon as I finish it. But it suits the challenge so much that I’ll share it here first even if I tweak it a little bit next week for release.

Sometimes, when I hear music that inspires me to do something remotely similar, I start by learning (sometimes even recording) the part that produced a spark on me (a chord progression, a groove etc) and I work my song on top of that.

These past weeks I watched a show, The Leftovers season 1, and the music (by Max Richter) got on my head. So, I started recording it to try to analyse what’s so powerful on its simplicity, then try to do something similar. I did some changes, a different little melody, some notes on the arpeggio, and left it there.

Then a friend gave me an old Grestch snare drum, I did some recording at the end of the session I was working at that moment (my Leftover-nick track) to check the snare’s sound, and loved it, reminded me of Gaisbourg’s “Melody Nelson” album so I added a picked jazz bass, and organ and then (why?) I decided to combine both things: Max Richter meet Serge Gainsbourg.

For a whole week I did some “serious” composition after that, the results are quite original and personal I think.
So I decided to dedicate the song to all Scorpios around (like me, and a dozen friends and relatives that celebrate their birthdays these fist 22 days of November and late October)
To stay on the stealing/inspiring mood, I nicked the title from some lyrics by Phoebe Bridgers (with whose songwriting I’ve been seriously infatuated BTW)

So, this one’s for Max Richter, Serge Gainsbourg, Phoebe Bridgers and all Scorpios around.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!

Piano
Electric bass
Organ
Drum kit
Celeste
Electric guitars
Moog synth
Voices

11 Likes
#5

Oh my, I love Max Richter.

Kyoto is a rad track.

This has such a vibe, love it.

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#6

hey, thank you!
Kyoto, right. Her lyrics…I could grab a song title out of every sentence on any song of hers, lol

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#7

The playlist is rolling:

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#8

Analogue comfort blanket. Inspired by Pink Floyds ‘On the run’. I picked out the sequence on novation circuit and then created a complimentary loop where the notes fit inbetween the first loops. The original sequence was then discarded.

The Moog Werkstatt-01 was used for the main voice with other sounds from the Norns script stjornuithrott
Also a vst Synthi is used at the transition and later in a wide stereo nod to the original sequence but using the notes discovered from the above method. An EMS Synthi was used in the original track. Hope everyone is doing ok and beating any lockdown blues. :slight_smile:

8 Likes
#9

Going to try and get some time this weekend to do a new piece for this - but in the meantime, back in 2017 there was a prompt to the Electronic Music Philosophy group to do something similar. I made a piece using Veljo Tormis “Kust tunnen kodu” (How Can I Recognise My Home) - a track which was involved in a copyright dispute when Mark Bradshaw thought he was copying a folk song for the music to drama ‘Top Of The Lake’ - but he actually copied Veljo Tormis’s original and still under copyright musical setting of the folk song’s words.

The full album is well worth a listen (as is everything the group do - some fantastic work on show there)

7 Likes
#10

“*To ‘cover’ a song usually means to play your own version of it”, Marc wrote. Usually is an important word here. Usually I take these assignments literally. Not so this time. I have used the assignment as an excuse to achieve two things. First getting a MIDI-file into the Yamaha QY10 sequencer, and second make my synth sound like a cello. The original is played by the QY10 and the internal organ sound. It has no cello sound. Then I fade in the synth. All analog gear. Standard wave forms, noise and a filter. Subtractive synthesis.

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#11

that’s a beautiful sound! (also, for me it goes between sounding like a cello, and cat’s singing “meow meow meow meow”, both bringing such uplift to my ears :+1:)

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#12

I decided to choose a short track from one of my favourite albums, Brian Eno’s 1977 album Before and After Science.

“Energy Fools The Magician” is a wonderful track and I feel it’s always been a bit overshadowed by the other material for one reason or another. It’s a track that posseses a loose, moody (ambient?) jazz feel, similar to Miles Davis’ Get Up On It (1974) - especially the epic, “He Loved Him Madly” where I can hear a strong correlation with Eno’s more sideways excursions from the 70s, such as “Energy Fools The Magician”, Music For Films (1976) as well as “Over Fire Island” from the previous album, Another Green World (1975). I remember reading that Eno was obsessed with this particular Davis album. On these Eno tracks - much like “He Loved Him Madly” - bass and percussion provide an elastic, asynchorous bed for everything else (keys, synths, organ) to float around.

With this is mind, I thought I would add what I felt wasn’t there on “Energy Fools The Magician”: namely guitar, warbling synth and something a bit arhythmic to compliment the skittery, haptic feel of the original track’s fretbass and spacious drumming.

When I pulled the original track out of the mix, I was pretty satisfied with the result. I stuck to a one-take rule for each of the overdubs, so as to not overthink the process and respond instinctively to the melodic, harmonic and gestural aspects of the original track, as well as my succesive additions.

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#13

I went full music nerd in this week’s Junto, in which one is to “cover” a tune by recording something that obscures it, and then reveals it at the end. The “covered” piece is a canon by Orlando di Lasso, which I first saw in 1973.This version includes trip-hop pads and bossa-nova piano, but somehow it all still works.

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#14

Hey All, Being more a midi jerk and sample mangler than a performer I chose to work with a midi file cause it is Mozart and 333, you can’t go wrong with that. Slowed it way down and arped away. Arps are another cool invention for the non-performer.

Here is Glen Gould receiving oral pleasure while he plays it.

Hope all are well. Peace, Hugh

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#15

I’m getting back into playing guitar, and I’ve been listening a lot to Pete Cosey’s work with Miles Davis–just love it, and while I’m no Pete Cosey, I thought it would be fun to rip over the first track from 'Dark Magus." I started out with some atmospheric-ish stuff but soon tossed caution and subtlety to the wind and just tore it up with various patches on my Roland GR-55 guitar synth.

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#16

My track this week smothers a modern classic.

I recorded the drums and guitar playing along with the original, then recorded a bass part listening to those. To spice it up, I ran the MIDI part through a couple of soft synths.

Thanks for listening :slight_smile:

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#17

The GG video is awesome, thanks for that. And it sparked a very good track from you, on of my favourites, bravo! Yo did a great use of arpeggiators and delays and all.

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#18

Great track and I love the video. The side profile of you drumming looks like you are doing the funky chicken. Very cool.

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#19

Like others above, I started by transcribing an arpeggio from a favorite track and then wrote my own line to accompany it. After shifting the tempo and processing/re-processing many times, this track emerged.

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#20

So happy someone noticed

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#21

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#22


I thought 4 Non Blondes’ 'What’s Up" was rather boring, but without the help of my fellow bandmates I’m not going to make it a lot more exciting.

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